


Midnight Train

by flammablehat



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American South, Epistolary, Fish out of Water, M/M, Peaches - Freeform, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:33:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flammablehat/pseuds/flammablehat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Georgia, with its tropical lushness bound only by propriety, is rather like a lady’s bosom forced into greater prominence by the same corset that ties her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Train

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second round of Pornathon way back in 2010 and only rediscovered tonight.

_Dearest Gwen,_

_Thank you for your last letter; I have to apologize for the delay in my response. I confess the only character more surprised by my sudden expression of motion sickness than myself was the porter, poor man. Writing on the train has been difficult. But I am arrived now in Atlanta, and though I find my comportment battered by travels, I am well. I’m sure you will be amused to hear that my speculation as to the climate here in Georgia was as off the mark as you had predicted – not a desert, no, but a bath-house. A man has never suffered the effects of such moisture before, I swear to you._

_Alas, my taxi arrives, so I must finish: all my love to you and Ms. Morgana. Thank ~~Mr. Pendragon~~ Arthur once again for his patronage, at your convenience. I eagerly await your reply,_

_XOX  
Merlin_

* * *

Gaius greets him at the house, where everything seems suspended in a state of perpetual chaos. There are eighteen young men boarding here, and plantation-home though it may be, it feels claustrophobic with testosterone, good-natured shouting and misplaced socks. 

His tour is cursory and terminates at his room, which he’s to share with one of the other scholarship students, a boy named Gwaine, who leans up from his sprawl and lifts the cigarette from his mouth in greeting. He’s Merlin’s age, with long dark hair and long dark eyes. He watches Merlin unpack, smoke coiling from his fingers and his aristocratic nose. 

Their first exchanges pass this way – quiet, appraising. 

Merlin, drowning silently in anxiety and homesickness and miserable heat, is drawn up short his first night by the fuzzy sunset-colored fruit he discovers on his pillow.

* * *

He doesn’t like Coca-Cola, and this doesn’t recommend him to his company at all. The absurdity of it keeps him from taking it personally, but those first few weeks are lonely (the ice is thick beneath his feet), until he notices that Gwaine never drinks except from his own opaque flask. The affectation reminds him, crazily, of Will. 

It’s only natural to nick the flask and fill it with cola. 

The following night, the stuffing of his pillow is replaced with peach-halves.

* * *

_My dear Gwen,_

_Apologies in advance for my terseness; I’ve already borrowed enough paper from my fellow tenants to collectively owe them all of my future earnings. Never fear, a trip to the general store is planned for the weekend._

_To answer your questions in order: classes are challenging, my professors? Terrifying. The company is cheerful and the food remarkable. I have yet to tell you of the wonders of barbecue, but I will._

_All my love,_

_XOX  
Merlin_

_P.S. You may all be interested to note I live in a small township officially named Druid Hills. Please tell Arthur to close his mouth for me, thanks ever so._

* * *

Gwaine is unlike any of the boys Merlin has known before, as distant from Arthur as the moon is to the sun. 

On Merlin’s first rib night, Cook dumps a plate heavy with pork before him, layered in sauce. His stomach turns a little at the sight, but the smell is persuasive. He doesn’t know how to begin eating. 

“Your hands, boy,” Cook says, moving on down the table. 

“If you don’t need a wash afterwards, you’re not doing it properly,” Gaius advises.

“Like surgery?” Merlin smiles, and Gaius acknowledges this with a raised brow. 

“Like sex,” Gwaine says, shrugging. His mouth, as always, is occupied with a cigarette – unlit, in deference to Cook’s law, but in his mouth just the same. The smile he offers Merlin sends a dark shiver down his spine. 

He’s not like Arthur at all, Arthur who _fits_ in New York with his mind like stone battlements: straightforward and candid. 

Gwaine is a river, honest in his mutability. He fits the south in his own fashion, too. Georgia, with its tropical lushness bound only by propriety, is rather like a lady’s bosom forced into greater prominence by the same corset that ties her back.

Gwaine is a tipped hat to the matrons in town and sly fingers tracing Merlin through his trousers at night , unexpected and unapologetic. He’s the both of them bared from waist to thigh, not out of fear or of shame but out of indolence, because Gwaine is more interested in cupping Merlin’s hips to his own than he is in undressing.

* * *

_Gwen,_

_Homeward bound for Christmas! I’m bringing the ham, the wine, and a guest._

_Love,_

_Merlin_


End file.
